The Best Restaurants in Canberra Right Now

Canberra's restaurant scene has matured into one of Australia's most genuinely interesting, driven by proximity to the Southern Highlands, the Murrumbidgee valley, and the South Coast's produce, an embassy-driven appetite for sophisticated international dining, and a professional class with above-average incomes to spend on food. The city that was once a dining wasteland now hosts some of Australia's most exciting restaurants outside Sydney and Melbourne.

Capitol Bar and Grill (Hyatt Hotel, Canberra) — the Capitol in the heritage Hyatt on Commonwealth Avenue remains Canberra's most reliably excellent restaurant, with a menu anchored in Australian produce at confident brasserie level. The room, in the Hyatt's 1920s Art Deco building, is the best dining room in the city on pure ambience. The dry-aged beef and the wine list, with strong ACT and NSW regional representation, are the signatures.

Mezzalira — the long-established Mezzalira in the London Circuit precinct maintains its position as Canberra's best Italian, with house-made pasta, excellent risotto, and the dining room character of a restaurant that has earned its reputation over decades rather than through social media cycles.

Pilot — in the Ainslie suburb, Pilot's tasting menu format at the former service station site represents Canberra's most ambitious contemporary dining, with locally sourced ingredients and a wine list skewed toward natural and minimal-intervention producers that reflects the sensibility of a younger generation of Canberra dining.

Monster Kitchen and Bar (Hotel Hotel, New Acton) — the Monster at the Hotel Hotel in the New Acton cultural precinct provides all-day dining in an architecturally distinctive room, with a menu that handles everything from breakfast to late-night bar food with consistent quality and a local-produce focus.

Aubergine — Griffith's Aubergine on Barker Street has maintained its position as one of the city's most consistent fine dining experiences, with a classical French-influenced menu executed at a standard that national food media consistently recognises as being among the country's best regional dining.

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